The Enemy Within by Glenn Loury

I binged Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative by Glenn C. Loury. It's a page turned. The first years of his life are at a much slower pace, but by the time he is a teenager the story really takes off.

I regularly listen to Glenn Loury's podcast The Glenn Show, so I'll admit to having a bias for him and his ideas.

With that said, I think the book is great regardless of someone being a fan of Loury. It's a piece of literature. Loury uses literary devices to craft the story. Early events of his life are foreshadows of later events. Everything comes back together almost as if literary fiction (maybe it is more fiction than memoir). It is a very well written and structured book.

There is a common theme of "the enemy within," which Loury originally wanted to title the book. You should read or listen to the book, so I will not say more besides that the ideas has multiple layers.

Loury opens the book with a meta-analysis of his goal using game theory. He then, of course, comes back to it at the the end of the book. This makes for an interesting read and relationship. It will affect how I read memoirs and biographies going forward too, trying to gauge how well and deliberate an author is using such tactics. Loury is very aware; he says as much in the opening. He is very deliberate in each word, phrase, sentence, etc. He is very aware of how each element might affect readers. He creates a suspicious with his readers to earn their trust. I'm not sure if this will be successful, but it sure makes everything a lot more interesting. This is a book I look forward to rereading in the future. What does he really want? Why is he really writing this book? I'll look closer into those ideas next time I read it.

Glenn Loury, the character in the book, makes mistake after mistake. It's a little painful reading. How and why can he keep doing this? It's surprising how far and bad it gets for Glenn. It really makes the reader question his character. How and why?

He gives an answer. It may or may not be the most honest answer. It's impossible to know, especially after detailing his use of game theory in writing the book. Loury tells all to gain our trust, but something is missing for my tastes. I wanted to get more Loury diving deeper within. Maybe only a confession of being a complete narcissist or something to that degree would suffice. He seems too self-centered and narcissistic. He admits it, but it isn't explored it enough to make me think he has changed. He's older and he certainly has changed. But I guess more of that change is biological than his personality. This would be consistent with modern pyschology. But a deeper, significant growth that a readers want, isn't there. I can't buy it. He briefly comes back to what I'm calling "it" in the end, but my suspicion is that Loury knows and is hiding how narcissistic he still is.

Loury defends and supports his idea each week on his podcast, so the book isn't to spread his ideas. Maybe the book is really intended to his family. But still, I think they might see through it too. All this makes me unsure if this book is or isn't written in good faith.

This level of criticism could be applied to all memoirs and or writing in general, and I'll probably apply it, as I mentioned, going forward, maybe even give myself an inward examination.

Still, the story and life is well worth reading.